Kids That I Once Knew
by Fib1123581321
Summary: A whole new, magical generation has been born. Who are they, how were they raised, and whose lives have they touched? A series of one-shots depicting moments in time throughout the childhoods of various next generation characters.
1. Scar

_**Note:** Hello all! This is a re-upload of the first chapter of Kids That I Once Knew, an HP fan-fiction depicting moments throughout the childhoods of various second generation characters (some courtesy of JK Rowling and some original)._ _New chapters will be uploaded sporadically, as each acts as its own one-shot rather than an ongoing story. Hope you enjoy reading and please review if you can!_

_-Hailey_

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><p><strong>1 - Scar<strong>

(Albus Severus Potter, 2011)

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><p>'<em>Tell me everything that happened. Tell me everything you saw.'<em>

_-"Dead Hearts" (Stars)_

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><p>There was something about a bedtime story. James and Lily had always liked them, but not in the way that Al did. In fact, Albus almost always stayed up until the very end of the story, his younger sister, Lily, falling asleep at 'Once upon a time', and older brother James following suit soon afterward. One night when Al was a mere five years old (Lily was three; James was six), he and his siblings had all piled atop the living room couch together, their ears wide open as their father read them <em>The Tale of the Three Brothers.<em>

Harry was in the middle of the couch with his legs outstretched, Ginny beside him, her arm locked around his. James was lying perpendicular to his mum with the back of his head on her knee; Lily was curled up in Ginny's lap. Al was on the opposite side, hiding under Harry's shoulder where he had a clear view of the book's pictures.

"_The oldest brother_," Harry read, "_Who was a combative man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence_." Al was the only one still awake at this point (even Ginny had fallen asleep), but Harry continued to read nonetheless.

When the story was finished, Harry closed the book and looked down at his youngest son. Al stared back at him, and his eyes instinctively wandered directly toward Harry's forehead, in the middle of which sat a very prominent, lightning bolt-shaped scar. Al had never seen anybody else with such a scar, and so he had always associated it with his father.

Upon noticing where Al's perfect, green eyes were aimed, Harry asked, "What is it, Al?"

Al took a moment to register that he was meant to reply, but eventually he did, pointing to the scar and asking, "What's that red?"

"This?" Harry asked, holding up a hand to his head and brushing his fingers over the crooked line, which had plagued him for so many years, yet so many years ago.

Al nodded, his head rocking as far forward as it would go before he brought it back upright. It took a lot of energy to give such a nod, and Al was already exhausted, but he was too curious to fall asleep without an answer.

"It's a scar," Harry replied tentatively.

Al thought carefully about the word: scar. He didn't know what it meant, but he understood that it could be a red mark on the surface of a person's skin. Still, he wondered how someone would get such a thing. After all, he had seen plenty of red marks on his siblings, and even on himself, over the years, but they had never been permanent. As far as Al knew, Harry had always had his.

"How it happen?" Al asked, his eyes wide with interest and flecked with a small amount of fear.

Harry chuckled lightly before leaning down toward Al and answering, "Magic!"

Al's face immediately lit up with excitement, but when Harry smiled a half-smile, curled only at the corner of his mouth, Albus knew that there was something Harry wasn't telling him. He didn't like it when his father failed to make eye contact with him, and so as Harry looked away for a split second, Al was struck with another worry.

He reached up one of his arms, which was covered in a hand-made, green sweater (the letter 'A' embroidered on the front), and put his hand on Harry's chin, turning his father back to him. Al then asked yet another question, full of as much concern as a five year-old could possibly have. "It hurt?"

Two sets of green eyes were locked on each other now, and Al noticed that Harry's were sparkling. Tiny drops of water were forming beside them, and they confused Albus. Unlike Harry's scar, Al had never seen tears float atop his father's skin. He had seen them on many other people, his mother and siblings included, but never on his father.

Breaking Al's focus, Harry put a hand on his son's own forehead and said seriously, "No. Not anymore."

"You promise?" Al asked. He had never asked for such a thing, but Lily's whining was bound to have rubbed off on him eventually.

"I promise," Harry responded, this time with a nod of his own, but one much less enthusiastic than Al's previous nod had been.

Reaching his arm out to Harry's face, this time Al sat up on his knees so that he could touch the mark. As he did so, he watched his father's expression carefully, making sure that it showed no sign of pain. Harry didn't wince, not even the slightest.

Sitting back down, Al brought his hand back to his lap and said to his father, "Okay."

For a moment, Harry just looked back at Al in silence. Then, after looking around him and noticing three sleeping bodies dangling themselves over him, he said to Al, "I think it may be time to go to bed."

Al yawned. He was tired, but he still didn't want to sleep just yet. "No," he said. "Another story."

Harry laughed and said, "Fine. But I have to get rid of these zombies first." He then stood up from the couch, using the shoulder that had been around Al to wrap itself around Lily. "Stay here," he ordered Al before carrying the smallest Potter upstairs to her bedroom, her long, stunningly red hair hanging down beside Harry's waist. After Lily was tucked in, Harry returned to get James, and finally Ginny, who was only pretending to be asleep so that she could be carried up the stairs. He then came back to Al, who was in the exact same spot Harry had left him in.

"All right," Harry said as he sat down, putting his arm back around Al. "Which story now? Babbity Rabbity or Cinderella?"

Al furrowed his eyebrows as if in deep thought before suggesting adamantly, "No Rabbity. You say it."

"I tell one?" Harry asked. "About me?"

Al nodded, trying his best to make it smaller this time, like Harry's had been. "About you."

Harry complied, telling Al all about a horrendously disgusting potion he had brewed as a kid, to which Al listened intently. Eventually, Harry did manage to get Al to close his eyes, but it took a while. And every night after that one, once James and Lily were already asleep, Albus would ask his father to tell him another story of his own. For Al, there was something about a bedtime story; it was a part of life that he never had to question, so long as his father was telling it.

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><p><em><strong>Note: <strong>Did you like it? Let me know in a review! Also, if you enjoyed this, make sure to take a look at my on-going second generation story, Blood of the Birds. Thanks so much!_

_-Hailey_


	2. Sun

_**Note:** So, here is the second one-shot! This one is technically about Rose, though I ended up writing it from Ron's POV, because I just couldn't help myself. ;) Anyway, thanks for reading, hope you enjoy it, and make sure to leave a review!_

_-Hailey_

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><p><strong>2 - Sun<strong>

(Rose Weasley, 2017)

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><p>'<em>They had lights inside their eyes. They had lights inside their eyes.'<em>

_-"Dead Hearts" (Stars)_

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><p>The first time that Ron had held his daughter had been on the brightest morning he had ever seen. He could remember every moment of that sunrise, from the immense relief that shone across Hermione's face to the tiny tears that immediately fell from Rose's eyes... his eyes. He had taken her before Hermione had been given the chance, and if she hadn't insisted on holding Rose herself, Ron would never have let her go. From that moment forward, that little girl had been his sunlight, and every day he prayed that the sun would never set.<p>

Ron was in the midst of this prayer as he watched his now ten year-old daughter run around the front yard, magically blowing the wild roses for which she was named across the field to her little brother, nine year-old Hugo. Sitting comfortably on the front porch of his and Hermione's house, Ron found himself fiddling with his old deluminator as he kept an eye on the kids.

The light compartment that Dumbledore had once left him hadn't worked the way he'd wanted it to in years. At first, Ron had suspected that it was because he had kept his promise in never leaving Hermione again, perhaps meaning that the contraption felt no need to bring them back together. That was until Ron and Hermione had tested the theory while Ron was off on one of his Auror missions back when Rose was a baby. Hermione had apparently said his name repeatedly for hours while he was gone, but Ron hadn't heard a peep from his pocket, where he'd been stowing the deluminator.

"We don't need it anyway," Hermione said suddenly as she approached the porch, her arms wrapped around a disheveled Hugo who was trying to tear himself away from his mother's grasp. Hermione had been busy gardening, and was no doubt punishing Hugo for stomping all over her hard day's work.

"Let me go!" Hugo pushed and shoved, but eventually he ended up laughing and collapsing into Hermione as they fell onto the ground.

Smiling at their screams, Ron replied, "I know." But as he glimpsed back at Rose, who was now humming to herself while peeling the petals off a wilted flower, he wondered aloud to Hermione, "But what if somebody else does?"

After Hermione broke away from her distraction, who was busy climbing all over her, she attempted to make eye contact with Ron as she stated questionably, "I thought we'd already established that it doesn't work for anybody else."

As per usual, Hermione was right. The deluminator hadn't worked for Harry and Ginny, nor for any of Ron's older brothers. For all of them, it had only ever turned the lights on and off; it had never acted as a portkey. Even so, that wasn't what Ron was thinking of. He had never expected the deluminator to work properly for any of his siblings in the first place, for it had always been Hermione's voice that it was connected to.

While Rose may have inherited Ron's bright blue eyes and ginger hair, she had always had Hermione's soothing, gentle (if somewhat overly bossy) voice. She had Hermione's blood too, along with her incredible hold over Ron. That was why Ron refused to believe that in only a couple of weeks, Rose would be off to Hogwarts, where she could possibly get into the same kind of trouble that he, Harry, and Hermione had found themselves in during their years at school. He couldn't bear to think that his child would ever be put in that kind of danger, and so he was slowly but surely convincing himself that the deluminator hadn't broken, but had instead been passed down to the next generation.

When Hugo grew bored of fighting for his mother's attention, he ran into the house to get his miniature broom and left Hermione to move next to Ron, where she took his hand and waited for an explanation. She had always been able to tell what was really going on in his head, even if he never could.

Timidly, because he tended to be afraid of embarrassing himself by saying something stupid in front of Hermione, Ron asked, "Do you think it would work for Rose?"

Hermione took a long time to respond, during which Ron tried to read her changing expression. As soon as he'd asked the question, Hermione turned her gaze to their daughter, and then furrowed her eyebrows for a minute before answering, "Yeah, I think it would."

Ron was taken aback by Hermione's agreement. He had expected abject denial from her end. But then again, she had always had a way of surprising him. So, as if he had just been granted permission to do so, Ron called Rose over to him.

She walked slowly toward the front porch, her miniature legs hopping daintily across the grass with complete grace. Unlike Hugo, who tended to present himself with messy hair, sticky fingers, and old, torn-up Chudley Cannons shirts, Rose always looked pristine. Today, she had on a powder-blue sundress that reminded Ron of the one Hermione had worn to the Yule Ball so many moons ago. Rose's bushy hair was long and flowing as the wind blew it across her back, and her tiny, bare feet showed no sign of grass stains as they floated atop the earth.

It was enough to make Ron's heart melt when Rose instinctively curled herself into his lap (where she still fit like a glove beneath his long, gangly arms) and said, "How are you, Daddy? Are you brilliant?"

Laughing, Ron whispered to his daughter, "Your mum's the brilliant one, Rosie. But I'm feeling pretty cheerful myself. What about you? Are you brilliant like your mother?" From beside him, Ron could almost feel Hermione blushing.

Rose looked up into her father's familiar eyes as she gave a giant nod in response. When he smiled back at her, she added, "But I'm cheerful, too, like you." And she was. She was the perfect representation of both Ron and Hermione, all of their best qualities molded into the smallest frame that happened to hold the largest heart.

Distracted by Rose's perfection, Hermione had to nudge Ron to remind him of what he'd really wanted to talk to Rose about. When he remembered, he positioned Rose to a comfortable spot on his knee and unraveled his arm from around Hermione's shoulder in order to pick up the deluminator from the step he was sitting on.

"Guess what, Rosie?" he asked as he took hold of the object and got ready to press the top button. "I have a present for you."

Unfortunately, Ron's moment was interrupted by an enormous bang that sounded from inside the house. He quickly gave a knowing look to Hermione, who stood up willingly and went to inspect whatever it was that Hugo had broken this time.

Being used to her little brother's clumsiness always gaining the attention of their mother, Rose didn't even flinch to go after Hermione. She was far too comfortable sitting with Ron to ever consider moving. So, she maintained her focus on him, turning his pale, freckled face back to hers and reminding him, "You were about to give me something."

"Why, yes," Ron replied. "Yes, I was." He then held out the deluminator for Rose to see and, with a single click, a medium-sized ball of light appeared. It was as bright as that sunrise in September, 2006 had been, and blended beautifully with the sky in Rose's eyes.

Rose had seen Ron turn on the lights with this odd toy before, but seeing it now, with the knowledge that it would soon be hers, made it look much different than it had before. Curiously but confidently, she reached out for it and grabbed hold of the deluminator, gripping it so tightly that her skin could feel the warmth emanating from the little box of energy.

As Ron handed over the deluminator, he wondered again if it would really work for Rose. If, for whatever reason, she lost herself in the future, he hoped that this might bring her back to him. And as he questioned what made him so incredibly protective of her, Rose clicked the deluminator herself, and from it appeared a second light that answered Ron's question for him.

This light was much smaller than the one Ron had lit. It was perhaps the size of his thumb rather than that of his fist, and it shone as faintly as the quietest whisper. Just like Rose, it didn't have a scratch on it. It was perfect, but it was also undeniably fragile. Darkness would be able to overcome it in a second, and so it needed to find its place in the sky where it could grow on its own. And if he trusted Rose to be able to go off to school and to find her place there, he knew that someway, somehow, she'd grow strong enough to find her way back to him. She'd make sure that his tiny, perfect sunrise never set.


	3. Silence

_**Note:** What can I say? I'm on a roll here! These one-shots just keep popping into my head, and then I can't do anything else until I write them. This one's about a miniature Scorpius. Happy reading!_

_-Hailey_

_PS - I made Astoria a little older than I've heard she's meant to be. (I actually made her seven years older than Draco.) I did it because these one-shots are canon to my story, 'Blood of the Birds', in which Astoria is meant to have been in the same school-year as Charlie Weasley (which has actually yet to be revealed in 'BotB', so spoiler alert there).  
><em>

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><p><strong>3 - Silence<strong>

(Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, 2012)

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><p>'<em>Did you see the closing window? Did you hear the slamming door?'<em>

_-"Dead Hearts" (Stars)_

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><p>Chess was like a family that was slowly falling apart. The pawns were words; they were little things said over time that nobody expected would make a difference in the long run, even though the last one to break often had a way of deciding the fate of the game. The two rooks represented the family's house, strong and supportive until the last possible moment. The bishops were like arrows that the king and queen could throw wherever they pleased, zipping across the board with fury and rage. The king and queen were the parents, the king acting as the pillar of the game, even though the queen was always the one who caused the most damage. Finally, the knights were the children: always moving in unexpected directions and always paying for the king and queen's mistakes.<p>

Scorpius was one of those knights, and this evening was yet another game, in which half of the players had already been knocked out. The six year-old boy had found himself locked in his own bedroom, his ears plastered to the enormous, black door that separated him from his outraged parents. They had been in the middle of a yelling match for hours now, but Scorpius didn't know what it was about. All he knew was that they weren't arguing over him. It was never about him.

"I am not talking about _disappearing!_ I've been asked to go to Romania for a few weeks, that's all!" Scorpius overheard his mother yell. She was leaving again, but that was only normal. Astoria was always going places for work, traveling so much that she was barely ever home.

"Except that you only got back two days ago!" screamed his father. "And don't think I don't know why you want to go to Romania so badly..."

"It's for _work!_"

"Like_ hell_ it is! You just want to go so that you can visit that twerp, _Charlie Weasley._" Scorpius didn't recognize the name his father had said, though he had heard all of the bad words time and time again.

"I am _not!_" Astoria countered, and this time an enormous stomping sound came with her voice, and Scorpius shuttered upon hearing it, wrapping his arms around his legs in a fetal position. "And even if I was, it's not as if I'm having an affair with him. I went to school with Charlie, for Christ's sake."

"Yeah, well I went to school with his _pathetic_ little sister, but you don't see me sneaking off with her all the time!"

"Well, I would certainly hope not. She's married to _Harry Potter!"_ Now that name, Scorpius had heard before. In fact, this 'Harry' person had come up in the midst of his parents' fights countless times before. Draco was usually the one to bring him up whenever he argued with Astoria about work, but lately Astoria hadn't shied away from the topic either.

For a moment, Scorpius's father didn't respond. But then he heard him say, "And you're married to _me_. When are you going to get that into your head?"

"Maybe when you stop using it as a _threat_."

"All right, fine. Shall I use our son as one instead? Or have you forgotten about him as well?" Scorpius covered his ears when he heard the word 'son'. He'd been taught to do that, but it still didn't block out the screams, which were building in volume yet again.

"Of course I haven't! Why do you think I made sure to lock his bedroom door?"

"Oh, yes, because that will solve everything! Let's just hide him away whenever we don't feel like dealing with him and pretend that he doesn't understand what's going on inside his own home."

"And what makes you think that he does understand? He's a _child_, Draco! He's only six years old."

"That's old _enough_, Story. Believe me."

"Why ever should I? What would you know about him? You haven't spent any more time with the boy than I have."

"That is _not _true! I'm the one who's stayed home and taken care of him all the times _you've_ left him."

"But only when you can't convince your mutt of a mother to look after him for you!" Narcissa. Scorpius's grandmother was the third person on this planet that Scorpius loved, though she was quite possibly the only one who loved him back.

"Well, maybe if I had some help from _you_, I wouldn't have to use my mum as our own personal nanny!"

"And we're right back to where we started! _Unbelievable_."

"Yes. You are."

Then there was a slapping sound, akin to something Scorpius had made when he'd tried to kill a spider that had invaded his room through the window. Afterward, all he heard was stomping that must have come from the marble staircase, and then a slamming door from across the hall. Then silence.

It was the silence that truly terrified Scorpius. Regardless of how terrible the noises sounded, at least they meant that he wasn't alone. Silence, on the other hand, was the loneliest sound in the world.

As the tears started raining down his pale cheeks, Scorpius stood up shakily and walked away from his door. Across the room, he arrived at the only material item that had ever mattered to him: his chess set. He quickly grabbed his favorite piece, the knight, and then tip-toed back to the door that was still locked shut.

Scorpius gripped the knight tightly in his right fist and stared at the door with searing eyes. He tried to focus on the door opening, and pulled all the energy in his body down into his gut. He had no idea why was he doing this, or how he knew that it would work, but for some reason he was, and it did.

The door banged open as if it had been blasted by an ocean of water, and Scorpius didn't even flinch when it happened. Instead, he ran across the threshold and into the stark hallway of Malfoy Manor.

He was careful to slide his way past his parents' bedroom so as not to make a sound, knowing that his father was inside and would punish him if he were to see Scorpius out of his room. Draco was always in bad moods when Astoria was gone, that much Scorpius had learned a long time ago.

The room Scorpius entered was a few doors down, closer to the stairwell and adjacent to his father's office. He held his arm up to reach the doorknob, then twisted it and creaked the door open.

Narcissa had refused to leave Malfoy Manor when Lucius had died and when Draco had inherited the house. She'd been there since Scorpius had been born, and she was always the one he went running to when the silence gave him nightmares.

Scorpius's grandmother was asleep at the moment, as she seemed to be able to sleep through any possible amount of screaming, so Scorpius climbed into her bed and wrapped her arm around him. She woke up at his touch, and knew by the sight of his tears that Draco and Astoria had been fighting again.

"Shhh," Narcissa held him and rubbed his back. Then she promised, "It's not about you. It's never about you." Hearing her voice was enough to get Scorpius to breathe again, but his heart was still thumping with fear. He'd tried to block out their voices like Narcissa had taught him to, but it hadn't worked. He'd still heard every word.

"Just hold on, Scorpius. Hold on." And he did. Scorpius held onto his grandmother, and he held onto the small, marble knight in his fist, and he thought about his favorite game.

Chess was like a family that was slowly falling apart. The pawns were words, and the silence came when the pawns were overtaken, and when there were no more words to say. Scorpius was a knight, and his grandmother was a rook; a part of the foundation upon which he'd been born. She was strong and supportive, and so as long as he had her, he wouldn't be the next piece to fall. Instead, he'd keep moving in unexpected directions, escaping from and avoiding the king and queen's mistakes.

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><p><em><strong>Note: <strong>Hope you liked it! I know it was a little sad, but I wanted to upload a sad one for Scorpius to go along with the latest chapter of my ongoing story, 'Blood of the Birds'. (Chapter 19 links back to this one-shot pretty perfectly, I must say.) Anyway, please leave a review, and thank you for reading!_

_-Hailey_


	4. Legacy

**_Note:_**_ Hi everyone! It's good to be back in HP-mode. (I feel a little like my mind has been living in Panem lately.) I wanted to upload this one-shot to provide some context to Chapter 20 of 'Blood of the Birds' (for which a new chapter should be uploaded within the next couple of days, for those of you who are waiting for it), and the way that I decided to portray Teddy in it. Even if you haven't read 'BotB', though, I hope this can act as a fresh take on a Sorting-story for the eldest of the second generation. So, thanks for reading, and please leave a review if you can!_

_-Hailey_

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><p><strong>4 - Legacy<strong>

(Teddy Remus Lupin, 2009)

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><p>'<em>They moved forward and my heart died. They moved forward and my heart died.'<em>

_-"Dead Hearts" (Stars)_

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><p>"I've been waiting for you, boy," said the hat. Teddy wondered if only he could hear it. He hadn't heard the Sorting Hat speak to any of the other students, so he prayed that he wasn't the only one.<p>

_What do you mean by that?, _thought Teddy without actually saying it. He'd been feeling as if people had been staring at him all day, like they somehow knew who he was just from seeing him on the Hogwarts Express and now in the Great Hall. It was strange to have so many knowing eyes on him, especially since Teddy's own eyes weren't filled with any knowing at all.

Teddy was shocked when the Sorting Hat answered his thought, replying, "You remind me of your father already. You have his same fear."

_My father?, _Teddy thought. His parents had died when he was just a baby, and so he had been raised by both his grandmother, Andromeda, and his godfather, Harry Potter. They had told him all about his late parents, Remus and Tonks, but he had never heard anyone else speak of them in his presence, especially Remus. Teddy looked just like Tonks apparently, with her same spiky hair that could change color at will, but he had never been compared to his father before.

Apparently, the Sorting Hat could sense all of this in Teddy's head as well, since it said to the young boy, "Remus Lupin – he left quite the legacy, you know."

A legacy. What had Teddy been born into? What had his parents done that was so memorable? And if they had left such a mark at Hogwarts, how could somebody have taken their lives in a single shot? Who could have done something so terrible?

"_Fear_, my boy," the hat interrupted Teddy's wondering. "It is a powerful thing – powerful in its vulnerability. Fear for his friends, and later fear for his family, was your father's weakest trait... but it was also his strongest."

What did the hat mean? What did it know about Remus that Teddy didn't? How could Teddy get the hat to tell him more about the man he'd never had the chance to know, the man he'd never had the chance to model his life after? What else could the hat remember?

"Curious, aren't you?" asked the Sorting Hat. "Now that, you get from your mother."

Nymphadora Tonks. Teddy felt as though he knew his mother, or at least enough to make him miss her, through all of the stories that Andromeda had told him over the years. Tonks had been an Auror, a dark-wizard catcher, and an impressive one at that. She was one of the youngest witches to ever work in the department, and Teddy's grandmother had been so proud of her. She would always tell Teddy that his mother had been the toughest woman she'd ever known, but that nobody – not even she – was tough enough to evade death.

"Well then," the hat continued, this time refraining from following the tangents of Teddy's thoughts and instead remaining focused on the necessary task of finding a house to sort the eleven year-old into. "You possess qualities from both your father _and_ your mother, which means that you would do well in either Gryffindor or Hufflepuff... begging the question, where should I put you?"

Teddy didn't know all that much about the four Hogwarts houses. He knew that Harry had been in Gryffindor like Teddy's father. Plus, some of Harry's nieces and nephews, including Teddy's close childhood friend, Victoire Weasley, were praying to be sorted into the same house. They all said that Gryffindor was the house that all the best wizards were sorted into, all the brave ones and the courageous ones – the lion-hearted.

But thinking this made Teddy recall what the Sorting Hat had mentioned only moments ago: Remus, Teddy's father, had been sorted into Gryffindor, yet the hat claimed that he'd been a fearful boy, and later, a fearful man. So, if Gryffindor was meant to house the brave, how could the hat have sorted a Gryffindor student who'd been nothing but scared?

"Ah, a good question!" exclaimed the hat, startling Teddy ever so slightly. "You see, fear is what makes people fight. It is what makes them long for justice. It is what makes them love. Your father was always meant to be in Gryffindor, for it was his fear that made him undeniably brave."

Finally, Teddy understood. He understood how his father had felt, sitting upon this same stool with this same hat, reading his same thoughts. Teddy was terrified to be here, walking the halls in which his parents had been killed and feeling their blood all across the marble floor. He was scared to meet the other students and have to explain to them why he lived with only his grandmother. Mostly, though, Teddy was frightened by the possibility that he might not live up to his parents' expectations of him – that he might not be able to ever give meaning to their premature deaths.

Once again seeing straight into Teddy's thoughts, the hat said quietly but intensely, "Hold onto that fear, Ted Remus Lupin. Hold onto it for as long as you possibly can, because it will make you stronger than you'd ever know."

_Okay_, promised Teddy. _I'll hold onto it. I'll be afraid. I'll be afraid until the day I find the person who took their lives. I'll be afraid until I find the one who killed my father's fear. _And he meant every word of it. Teddy would look for the Death Eater that still haunted his dreams every night, and when he found them, he would finally let go of his fear, giving it all away to the person who'd never let in any fear of their own.

Impressed by Teddy's determination, the Sorting Hat stated, "Well then, I suppose I shall let the legacy live on – _GRYFFINDOR!"_

Teddy smiled and hopped off the stool just as soon as Professor Longbottom had taken the hat off his head. He then walked over to the cheering students from the Gryffindor table in the middle of the Great Hall, taking a seat on the bench beside a relatively tall first-year boy, who held out his hand to shake and said, "Hi. I'm Andrew Wood."

"Hi. I'm Teddy Lupin." After introducing himself, Teddy took in the rest of his surroundings, from all the excited, effusive students at his table, to the wizened, whispering professors up front, to the mesmerizing, moving portraits on the walls. He tried to take a mental image of this moment, of the first moment he'd ever felt truly connected to his father, and thought about the legacy that he was about to lead. Then he thought of what the Sorting Hat had said about having been waiting for him to arrive, and Teddy realized that he too had been waiting to arrive at Hogwarts. He too had been waiting to feel the power of fear. He too had been waiting for his life to start.


	5. Longing

_**Note:** It's been exactly two months since I last uploaded this, so I figured it was about time to add another one-shot. I had a lot of fun writing this one for a character I've never written before, so I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for reading, and be sure to leave a review if you can._

_-Hailey_

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><p><strong>Longing<strong>

(Victoire Weasley, 2013)

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><p>'<em>Please, please, tell me what they looked like. Did they seem afraid to you?'<em>

_-"Dead Hearts" (Stars)_

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><p>The best pieces of sea glass were the perfectly round ones that had somehow maintained a rich, dark color. They were rare, because it took years to smooth the sharp edges of broken glass into pearl-like treasures, and the longer it took, the more the original color would fade. Before too long, most of the rounded pieces would grow pale and pastel, but every so often, one would find a dark blue sapphire, a red blood cell, or a black heart, and that would be the piece they'd hold onto forever.<p>

On the calmest morning of that year's summer, Victoire Weasley was walking along the beach of Shell Cottage with her younger sister. After waking up early and peering out her bedroom window to find the tide at its lowest point, Victoire had pulled Dominique out of bed and dragged her outside to hunt for fresh sea glass. It had been their summer tradition ever since they were little, though now that they would both be headed to Hogwarts in the fall, they each only had so much time to grow their collection.

"Anything good yet?" Victoire yelled back at Dominique upon hearing her sister yawn lazily. Dom had never been much of an early-riser, and so she'd been pretty silent ever since they'd left the house.

Dominique was walking a few yards behind Victoire, and though she'd found some greens and whites, she was much too tired to keep her eyes focused on the shimmering sand. Thinking such, she called back to Victoire, "Nothing much. It looks like a bad morning; maybe we should just head back?"

"Don't be silly!" Shouted Victoire before Dominique had a chance to run off without her. "We can't very well go back empty-handed. Imagine what sort of example that would set for Louis!" Victoire was the eldest of the three siblings, and she enjoyed being the responsible leader in the family. Looking out for her brother and sister made her feel important, and so she was always trying to be a good role model for them.

"Anyway," she continued, ignoring the rolling of Dominique's turquoise eyes. "Remember what Dad always says: We are Weasleys-"

But Dom finished for her by saying, "We don't give up." Running to catch up with Victoire and taking her hand, she tried to nudge away from the rebellious side of her so that she could see the world with Victoire's same optimism and said, "I know, I know."

Victoire smiled at her sister's closeness before adding, "Plus, I want to find something great before we leave. It's your first year at Hogwarts, Dom. You need to have something from home to take with you; something to help you remember when you're about to forget."

Dominique looked at Victoire and laughed, wondering why her sister was always so serious. She was only two years older than Dom, but sometimes she seemed like she was trying to act wiser than she really was. Telling her this in what she hoped wasn't an offensive way, Dominique said, "Vicky, I'm not going to forget my family just because I've gone off to school. And anyway, you'll be there. We can remember together."

This time, it was Victoire's turn to see right through Dominique's attempt at wisdom. The two sisters were far more alike than they realized, from their same blonde hair and piercingly blue eyes to their unflagging hope and willingness to love. Still, all those similarities were shrouded in differences. While Victoire's golden locks were long and straight and her blue eyes were pure and untainted, Dominique's hair was shoulder-length and wavy and her eyes were blended and mixed. While Dominique's hope was skeptical but her willingness to love unabashed, Victoire's hope was honest but her love full of fear.

"You don't understand," Victoire told her sister as she shook her head. "Things change at Hogwarts. People change. Feelings change." She had lived through two years at the magical school, where she'd been sorted into Gryffindor alongside childhood friend, Teddy Lupin. But he was two years older than her, and things between them weren't the same as they used to be. They weren't as easy. They weren't as simple.

"What are you talking about?" asked Dominique concernedly. "You _love_ school."

She was right. Victoire had loved every part of Hogwarts ever since she'd first stepped foot on the castle grounds, just as her father had promised her she would. But there would always be a part of her that longed for something more – whether with schoolwork, friendships, or even with Teddy – because there was always a better piece of sea glass to be found. She had inherited such high standards from her mother, and it was a characteristic that was completely unique when compared to the rest of her Weasley cousins.

But Dominique knew her. She knew her sister better than anyone, and so she sensed that there was more to Victoire's worry than just the thought of returning to school. After all, Dom had seen the way her sister looked at Teddy whenever they met up in Diagon Alley or at Uncle Harry's house. Thinking of him, Dominique asked Victoire, "What are you so afraid of? Is it Teddy?"

Victoire wasn't exactly surprised that Dom had guessed what she was really thinking about. Still, she didn't often talk about Teddy with anyone, even her sister. Maybe that was because in a world where everything had always made sense to Victoire, her feelings for Teddy made no sense at all.

Dominique followed Victoire as the latter sighed and sat down on the sand, bending her legs and bringing her knees to her chest. "Have you ever had a crush on anyone, Dom?" she asked with her eyes forward and facing the water. It was unusually still today, so still that it was almost ominous, even frightening.

"I dunno', really," answered Dominique truthfully. "I might have, I suppose, but I haven't noticed it yet."

Smiling to herself, Victoire replied, "That's good. That's the fun part, the not noticing. It's when you notice that it starts to hurt." She couldn't pinpoint the exact day that she'd realized her thoughts of Teddy concerned more than friendship, but it had definitely happened fairly recently. From that moment forward, things had just spun out of control.

It wasn't that they were fighting, or even that Teddy had found himself a girlfriend for Victoire to be jealous of. He was still her very best friend, and he'd never so much as looked at any other girl. It was just that every time Victoire saw him, she couldn't stop wondering what he was thinking beneath that fluorescent hair of his, or stop analyzing the underlying meaning of every word that came out of his mouth. It was exhausting, and no matter how hard she tried, the thoughts wouldn't disappear.

"Why don't you just tell him how you feel?" Dominique's sudden question woke Victoire from her reverie, and it was all she could do not to start crying right then and there. "I mean, maybe he's noticed too."

Still trying to hold back her tears, Victoire finally turned to face her sister and asked with worry, "But what if he hasn't?"

Dominique jumped at this, finally finding her energy that had been so absent all morning. With her hands in the air and her bare feet twirling through the sand, she said to the world, "So what if he hasn't?" before approaching Victoire once more and holding out a hand to help her up as she added more seriously, "Remember what Dad always says: We are Weasleys-"

"We don't give up," finished Victoire as she stood upright once more, refusing to take Dominique's hand because she needed to stand on her own.

Laughing profusely now, Dominique's red cheeks were bursting as she nodded adamantly and said, "That's _right_. Now, let's get back to the house, because we have some serious packing to do... _together_."

Victoire agreed and the two walked back down the beach the opposite way they'd come, once again hand in hand. They both had their heads down as they searched for sea glass without feeling any pressure to find something good, but Dominique ended up spotting one anyway.

It wasn't a red blood cell or a black heart, but rather a combination of the two. It was spectacularly crimson and sublimely smooth but for one acute edge, and it was quite possibly the rarest piece of glass either one of them had ever laid eyes upon.

Still gazing at its beauty, Dominique put it in Victoire's hand and said, "You take it. That way, you'll be the only person who can break your heart."

Victoire took it hesitantly, for she didn't want to have it for herself without being able to share it with Dominique. But after thinking it over, she realized that Dom didn't need it as much as she did. Victoire had always been a pale piece of sea glass, nicely rounded but quickly fading. Dominique, on the other hand, was bold, carefree, fearless. After all, that was why Victoire had to look out for her so carefully. It was because she was a rarity, a young girl who would easily be lost if someone didn't hold onto her forever.


End file.
